Wisconsin Badgers
Record: 20-12 (12-6 Big Ten)
Head Coach: Greg Gard (1st season)
Season Recap: At the beginning of the season, it certainly seemed as if the Badgers would miss the NCAA tournament a year after coming just minutes away from claiming the national championship. Wisconsin lost its season opener at home to Western Illinois, and picked up four more losses in nonconference play—three of which were at home to unranked foes—before the calendar turned to 2016. To complicate things, head coach Bo Ryan accelerated his planned retirement, stepping away Dec. 15 after a 7-5 start to the season, putting Greg Gard—Ryan's preferred successor—into the head coaching role on an interim basis.
The start of conference play was not much more promising, though, as the Badgers dropped three straight in early January to Indiana, Maryland and Northwestern. But Gard turned his team around, as Wisconsin rebounded to win seven straight and 11 of 12 against Big Ten opponents to vault itself back into the tournament field. The Badgers bowed out early in the Big Ten tournament with a 12-point loss to Nebraska in their first game, but still earned a No. 7 seed in the East region and will face Pittsburgh in the first round.
Junior Nigel Hayes passed on the NBA and returned to Madison, shaking off some early-season struggles to lead Wisconsin in scoring at 16.3 points per game. Bronson Koenig and his 13.4 points per game provide a nice complement to Hayes on the perimeter, and junior Vitto Brown serves a nice role as a big body inside that can also stretch out to the perimeter.
How they make a run: Hayes and Koenig rely on their experience from two straight Final Four runs and guide Gard's squad past Pittsburgh and second-seeded Xavier and into the Sweet 16.
How they falter: This year's Badger offense is far less fluid than the one that featured Frank Kaminsky and Sam Dekker last year, and Wisconsin does not have enough size down low to compete with a very physical Pittsburgh team that sends them home after one game.
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